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Who are the top ten players in the Big Ten?

My “How does Geary Claxton rank” post offered up a simplistic measure for determining the best players in the B10. There are other measures that are typically used. Here are three:The NBA Efficiency ModelThe NBA uses a very simplistic model for player evaluation. They simply give a player one point for each positive result (point, rebound, steal, block, or assist) and subtract a point for each negative (turnover, missed shot, missed free throw).

Using that as a model, here are the top ten performers in the conference (NOTE: for each of these evaluations, I limited my calculations to the top thirty guys in the league in terms of minutes per game).

Rank

Player

Team

NBA

NBA/game

NBA Rank

1

Gordon, Eric

IU

196

21.78

1

2

White, D.J.

IU

207

20.70

2

3

Claxton, Geary

PSU

194

19.40

3

4

Morgan, Raymar

MSU

207

18.82

4

5

Moore, Craig

NU

150

16.67

5

6

Butler, Jamar

OSU

162

16.20

6

7

Ellis, Jamarcus

IU

156

15.60

7

8

Neitzel, Drew

MSU

166

15.09

8

9

Hummel, Robbie

PUR

148

14.80

9

10

Pruitt, Shaun

ILL

143

14.30

10

Game Score

Many, most notably Dean Oliver and John Hollinger, find fault with the simplistic NBA model. They feel that all of these measure should not have equal wait. They modify the NBA model by only assigning half a point to blocks, assists, fouls, and free throw attempts.

Using their model, often called Game Score, the top ten performers are:

Rank

Player

Team

Game Score

GS/game

GS/Rank

1

Gordon, Eric

IU

163.00

18.11

1

2

Morgan, Raymar

MSU

151.70

13.79

2

3

White, D.J.

IU

136.40

13.64

3

4

Claxton, Geary

PSU

134.80

13.48

4

5

Moore, Craig

NU

115.60

12.84

5

6

Butler, Jamar

OSU

123.80

12.38

6

7

Neitzel, Drew

MSU

133.10

12.10

7

8

Crawford, Jordan

IU

76.40

10.91

8

9

Harris, Manny

MICH

114.10

10.37

9

10

Hughes, Trevon

WISC

103.50

10.35

10

Win Score

Lastly there are others, specifically the authors of Wages of Wins, who feel that Oliver and Hollinger were on the right track by assigning weights but were just arbitrary in assigning half weights to certain values. Instead they choose to run a regression analysis to more accurately determine the correct weights. Their conclusions: Points, steals, and turnovers are equal and assigned a weight of 1; field goal attempts, offensive rebounds, assists, and blocks get a .7 weight; made field goals and personal fouls have a .4 factor; and, finally, defensive rebounds weigh in at .3.

Using that formula, called Win Score, here are the top ten in the conference.

Rank

Player

Team

WinScore

WS/game

WS/Rank

1

Gordon, Eric

IU

177.00

19.67

1

2

White, D.J.

IU

190.00

19.00

2

3

Morgan, Raymar

MSU

192.50

17.50

3

4

Claxton, Geary

PSU

172.50

17.25

4

5

Moore, Craig

NU

125.50

13.94

5

6

Pruitt, Shaun

ILL

133.50

13.35

6

7

Butler, Jamar

OSU

132.00

13.20

7

8

Neitzel, Drew

MSU

135.00

12.27

8

9

Ellis, Jamarcus

IU

121.00

12.10

9

10

Crawford, Jordan

IU

82.00

11.71

10

Rather than anointing one as better than the others in this post (I have my own methodology that I’m working on that I’ll cover at a later date), I’m just going to average the three approaches.

Doing that give us this top ten.

Rank

Player

Team

GS/Rank

NBA Rank

WS/Rank

Avg

1

Gordon, Eric

IU

1

1

1

1.00

2

White, D.J.

IU

3

2

2

2.33

3

Morgan, Raymar

MSU

2

4

3

3.00

4

Claxton, Geary

PSU

4

3

4

3.67

5

Moore, Craig

NU

5

5

5

5.00

6

Butler, Jamar

OSU

6

6

7

6.33

7

Neitzel, Drew

MSU

7

8

8

7.67

8

Pruitt, Shaun

ILL

13

10

6

9.67

9

Crawford, Jordan

IU

8

12

10

10.00

10

Ellis, Jamarcus

IU

15

7

9

10.33

It certainly looks like Eric Gordon could be on track to win both the Freshman and the Player of the Year in the B10, although I do suspect that DJ White will pick up a bunch of votes for his body of work.

Also, all of the measures seem to be pretty consistent on who the top five are. Things do start to shuffle around a little bit with the second ten though.

It will be interesting to see how things hold up through conference play.